East of Eden: Movie, Book, and Legends of the Fall

A couple years ago, I saw East of Eden on the airplane and fell madly in love with both it and James Dean. It is possible that I fell in love with the movie because James Dean was in it. I'm not sure. Anyway, I was convinced it was the most perfect movie I had ever seen, absolutely faultless, and oh, why couldn't I give Cal Trask a hug, the poor unloved thing? I guess it is difficult for a movie to live up to a first impression like that. It is true that with each subsequent viewing, I like it less. It has many good points: the acting is brilliant, the cinematography is beautiful, the soundtrack lends a lot of atmosphere to the film, and it is wonderfully dramatic. The last thirty minutes have me glued to my seat and on the verge of tears.

 

However, it also has some faults, faults I was blind to as a thirteen year old. First of all, everything except the last thirty minutes is kind of dull once you know what happens. Second of all, Julie Harris and James Dean don't have such good chemistry. Third, the plot is completely messed up, especially after you read the book.

 

*Spoilers Ahead*

 

The whole point of the movie is that Cal Trask is really not such a bad guy and his brother Aron is just as bad in his own way, or at least, not much better. By the end, you are supposed to realize that Aron is a jealous boy who wants to believe his brother is a bad person, regardless of whether he is or not. The problem is, Aron's jealousy begins to surface once he has every reason to be jealous. Cal Trask steals Aron's girlfriend, Aron knows something is going on, and he's not supposed to be jealous?? Aron doesn't start acting particularly jealous until after Cal and Abra kiss on the ferris wheel. At their father's birthday party, Aron is sulking in the background, watching Abra pay far more attention to Cal than the boy she claims to be in love with. Really, there is nothing abnormal or mean-spirited about that. Most of us would act far worse.

 

Of course, that does not change the fact that when we watch this movie, we sympathize with Cal and dislike Aron. Poor Cal, in love with his brother's girl, nasty Aron, who gets everything he doesn't deserve. And then that horrible Aron has the nerve to call Cal "mean" and "vicious" right after the birthday party! Well, if you were in Aron's shoes, Cal would seem mean and vicious. And wartime profiteering is not exactly a morally upright thing to do. I feel that the point of this movie is not so much that you "can't always tell who's good and who's bad" but that different people seem good and bad from different points of view. Cal isn't any better than Aron and Aron isn't really any better than Cal. We just react to this movie the way we do because it is told from Cal's point of view and, well, James Dean is kinda sorta adorable. Now, in that light, think about the ending. It isn't exactly fair, now is it? The ending is my favorite part, I love it beyond words, I wouldn't change it for anything...but no, it isn't fair.

 

If you read the book, you will discover that the movie doesn't do justice to it. However, I felt that the part of the book the movie did cover was done better than it was in the book. In the book, it feels anti-climactic. In the movie, several events happen right after each other that take place over the duration of maybe a year in the book. But, the book has no Cal-Abra romance, the motivations are more understandable, it is far more interesting, and the moral ideas are less black and white. Faaaar less black and white. It's kind of disillusioning, how sleazy some of the best characters are. There are a few things they changed for the movie that perhaps didn't work so well. First of all, Abra is a whole lot prettier in the book. Since she's just an average, okay-looking girl in the movie, it suggests that Cal might have fallen in love with anybody that belonged to his brother. (So suggested my sister, the cynic.) Second of all, Kate is completely evil in the book. I don't think she has one redeeming quality, and boy, is it better that way! The movie Kate is just a bit too "whore with a heart of gold," and that is a pretty shallow stereotype in comparison to the psychopath the book's Kate is.

One of the first things my sister noticed when I showed her this movie is how similar it is to Legends of the Fall. I saw LOTF recently myself and the similarities are astonishing. I don't understand how it could be just coincidental, but the messages of each film are so different I don't see why LOTF would need to borrow from EOE. Some examples:

1. Both stories involve rivalries between brothers, particulary between two brothers, one of which is "wild" and the other is rule-abiding.
2. These brothers compete for the fiancee of one of the brothers.
3. The mother is out of the picture, having left the ranch long ago.
4. The time periods are roughly the same.
5. The brother engaged to the girl everybody wants dies in WWI.
6.  The father has a stroke and loses a lot of money.
7. The wild brother says he will earn back the money his father lost.
8. There is a man working with each family of a different race. (This is only in the book.)
9. The naughty brothers both move their eyebrows the same way. :)
10. Both movies have awesome soundtracks

Perhaps not the most shocking list, but watch the two movies in days of each other and see what you think.

East of Eden (Film): 9/10
Book: 9.8/10 :)
LOTF: Maybe 8/10

James Dean

Male style icons are, in my opinion, more unique personalities than fantastically dressed people. Their clothes, ideas, and acting combine to form a non-fashion related style. James Dean is an awesome example of this. Few people are as hung up with dressing like him as they are with acting like him--but a closer look reveals that his clothes matched the attitude that made him so popular. What attitude exactly? A rebellious, modern, and vaguely dangerous one. Perhaps James Dean encouraged 1950s teenagers to be borderline delinquents, but he only had this effect because that is what they already were, and by being the same way, he validated their position and painted it as a legitimate way to be. He was a total glorified bad boy, but he always seemed to mean well. A sympathetic rebel, and that is how all rebels feel about themselves. No wonder he made such a hit with teenagers and still resonates today.

My real purpose is not to analyze the causes and effects of the James Dean phenomenon but to talk about his clothes and his image. Certainly you couldn't have expected a scholarly, unfrivolous post from this me. In the future, you should know better. Anyway, the easiest way to get my point across would be to do a pic spam, but that isn't at all sufficient or in-depth, so I shall try to write a paragraph for each picture and point out some things you might not have noticed, if I notice them myself (not likely). If you like this, please tell me, because if I get the feeling no one cares for this format, I won't do it very often.

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"It takes 500 small details to add up to one favorable impression."
--Cary Grant

Here we see a lot of the elements that were part of Jimmy's persona. This picture was taken in some sort of art room or gallery and he is posing similarly to the statue on the table behind him, representative of his artistic side. It is also a very modern photo--it practically could have been taken yesterday--and the colors of Jimmy's clothes are an essential part of this. The combination of cool dark blue and white is very sleek, colors which also happen to be brought out by the color of the statue, the table, and the hazy background. If you have seen modern movies that take place in the past, something that keeps them from looking completely authentic is the tint of the film, which is often blue or gray in today's movies, but was yellowish seventy years ago. The blue tint here lends a very modern touch.

Here I see a distinct Brando resemblance around the mouth, but that is beside the point. Instead, notice the minimalist combination of brown and white, the leather rather than metal watch band, the lack of a tie, and the hair. The extremely messy polar opposite of your typical boy next door's hair. There is nothing precise or polished about this image. However, it has a similar quality as Grace Kelly's snow-covered volcano persona. Jimmy may be wearing a suit, but beneath it he is his sensual, untamed self.


The same contradiction is present here. Jimmy is wearing a suit in the same sleek brown and white, but the jacket's off and he's sitting on a hot car (hot in no small part because he's on it) with his hair messed up as usual. In so many pictures, the background color seems selected to set off the modern, clean colors of his clothing--in this picture, that is done by the cream car and the brown thing sticking up in the back. Also see the lace up boots, which add a rugged touch to the outfit.

This picture is hard to see, but it does show a few things. As elegant a shot as it may be, the modern coloring is all that saves Jimmy from looking like a near tramp. That and the fact that the clothes he is wearing are actually very nice...just wrinkled and very casually put together.



See the clean line of the black t-shirt, the contrast caused by the sunlight streaming through the odd curtains, the moody look, the unshaven face (you see that SO often now), and the messy eyebrows. He looks properly untouched up--but considering how different most men in the fifties were styled up for photos, this was probably a more offbeat shot. Have you ever seen Cary Grant this way? I haven't even seen Marlon Brando like this. I can't think of anybody famous before James Dean who posed so naturally--and by natural I mean without the dressings and stiffness of a typical movie star.

To finish it off, here are four photos of James Dean that I believe show four sides of his image that were important to his success:

The Tough Rebel

The No-Explanation-Necessary

The Vulnerable Little Boy Lost

And The Gorgeous Face

(the very, very gorgeous face)

180 Tag and a Short Update

Yes, I'm still here. No kidding. I've just been busy lately so blogging has temporarily become less of a priority.

Anyway, in regards to the 180 tag, I can get around to answering it now since my Algebra II exam is over and "180" is no longer a very dirty word. There is not really anyone I have 180-ed on, but there are a few that could somewhat qualify. Ava Gardner I used to think was rather unattractive, as well as somehow grape-like, but then I went through a strange phase where I wanted to be just like her, etc. etc. Then I started reading her autobiography online. I never finished it, though I started it twice, because I would get rather sick of her about the time her marriage to Frank Sinatra broke up. After watching a couple of her movies, I'm back to not caring one way or the other about her. Only now I'm not sure if it's an olive or a grape she reminds me of.

Esther Williams is a true 180, except the positive side didn't last more than a couple days back when I was in eighth grade. How many people like Esther Williams after they read her autobiography? Or just the reviews of it? I'm not one of them.

That's about it, although there are a few more mentionable changes of opinion. I used to think Natalie Wood was rather unattractive (tsk, tsk) and I also used to be in love with James Dean, but for some reason I don't think he's very good looking anymore, aside from his jaw (especially from profile! it's dreamy). And I also used to think Montgomery Clift was just horrible looking. Well, I certainly don't anymore. Maybe someday I'll 180 on Clark Gable and finally figure out what people see in him. But it doesn't seem at all likely.

Thanks for tagging me Millie!

Rebel Without a Cause

Starring James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, and Jim Backus

Recently I watched this movie with my mother for the third or fourth time--her first time. This is one of my favorite movies. Mother, however, did not like it. Anyway, I will come to that later.

The premise of this movie is the character Jim Stark's (James Dean) struggle to find friendship, understanding, and himself. His home life is described as a "zoo" and his father is made into "mush" by Jim's mother and grandmother. This makes Jim determined that he will not be a coward like his father...thus, he is very easy to provoke. All someone has to do to make him fight is call him "chicken", so he frequently gets in trouble and his mother has them move whenever he does so. The movie begins with Jim having moved into a new town and having just gotten drunk and hauled into a police station. At the police station, he sees Judy, a young girl deprived of her father's love, and Plato, a virtually abandoned child of divorced parents. At school the next day (technically, the same day), these three become friends and through their friendship, solve some of their problems, but not without experiencing pain and getting into very deep trouble.

The great thing about Rebel is the way it has so many moments where great acting and great lines come together. At the beginning, in the police station, Jim tells the policeman there to "get lost". This part illustrates how Jim appears to the grown-ups who just don't understand why he can't keep out of trouble. It's one of the only times, too, because after we get to know Jim, we see how he is trying to do the right thing as well as he can. The unsympathetic adults, however, don't see or understand this part of him, and can't figure out why he "shuts the door" in their faces. For less than a minute, before we know what is going on in his head, we see Jim as the belligerent rebel his outward appearance suggests. Of course, this is somewhat ruined because James Dean has our sympathy from the beginning; who could possibly not sympathize with someone so cute?

Like I said earlier, my mother probably did not sympathize with Mr. Dean, cute or not. For two days after watching Rebel, she was pointing out faults in it. First of all, the gang members looked far too old. And if that wasn't bad enough, the entire thing was beyond melodramatic. It was unrealistic for all that stuff to happen in one day. Jim Stark hardly ever ate, for Pete's sake. And everyone was messed up. Even when I pointed out snootily that having a tragedy take place in one day is an ancient Greek tradition, she failed to be impressed with the whole thing, saying it was not bad but she would not watch it again. This all comes from someone whose favorite movie is The Sound of Music, so it was obviously not something she would have enjoyed, but I thought she should see it anyway. I guess it's just part of my morbid personality.

A great part of this film is Natalie Wood. She's my favorite actress, so I'm biased, but this movie is one of the reasons she's said favorite. The fact that we see a Hollywood teenager onscreen as a teenager and not done up like an ice cream cone is a fabulous inspirition to teenage vintage fans like myself. Her hair is perfectly done but not elaborate, her make-up doesn't even look like it's there (excluding the opening scene), and her clothes are simple and young. Sometimes you can forget yourself and dress too old for your age if you use vintage actresses as style icons--the fact that Judy doesn't even have painted nails is a great reminder that teenagers existed back then too, even if Hollywood tended to age them or stick them in child parts. Check out Stage Door to see the results of the makeup men on thirteen or fourteen year-old Ann Miller.

There is so little to dislike about Rebel--I have managed to put aside my distress over Jim Stark's dietary habits and enjoy it anyway. Shocking, I know. The only bad part is that it makes it "cool" to be lonely and misunderstood. If you actually are lonely and misunderstood, it would probably cheer up, but otherwise it encourages rebellion a little. That's only a minor point. Another point is that in the Chickie Run scene, there is almost no way both people could have jumped from their cars. The person on the right would have been run over by the other's car. My mother also pointed this out. And whoever plays Jim's mother is a poor actress.

But things like the soundtrack, the lead players, and the themes more than make up for such minor faults. I give it 9/10.

And by the way, did anyone think Corey Allen (Buzz) looked like Marlon Brando? And was talking like him for some reason?